45 minutes to Truth
by GEFM 420
Summary: Chlark Fluff. Clark is dying and he has a few secrets left to tell Chloe.


45 Minutes to Truth By: GEFM 

She held my shoulders and shook, shook with all her human might.

"Please Clark. Please _God_, be okay."

But I wasn't okay. I had a puncture hole in me 1 inch long and several more inches deep. Turn a blade forged with Kryptonian metals on me and it spells real danger. I guess I never thought Lex would honestly stab me. How wrong I was, when I realized he was coming after me a second time.

The sun wouldn't rise for another 45 minutes and I was pretty much bleeding buckets here as we waited. We both knew by the size of the incision that I could very well not make it. I noticed the desperate fear forming in the lines of her face.

She covered me with the blanket from her car. If I had told her I was cold I didn't remember it. Just as well, I was starting to catch a chill, which on its own is an odd sensation for me. Normally, I don't feel temperature changes as humans do. I can tell extremes—hot from cold—I'm just not susceptible to its affects. What I'm saying is that you're not likely to ever hear me say, "Wow, I'm really hot." not unless, there's a red stone on my finger.

30 minutes, Chloe started talking to fill the silence. Actually, I'm not sure when exactly she started. It must have been about 10 years ago. Anyway, the girl's speech rapidly picked up, a clear indication of her fear and nerves. I began to seriously worry about her.

Funny, here I am practically bleeding my life out on the side of a road and I'm fretting over Chloe. Yeah, I **so** don't have a hero complex.

"Your lips are blue." 24 minutes. The gravity of the situation must've hit her like a ton of bricks. "Clark, oh my-oh my-oh my." She heaved, breaking her speech, as if having an attack.

And then she cried over me.

It's not like I had a lot of faith in the situation as it is, but having the girl sob over my stoic form made me feel as good as dead. I closed my eyes to her, no longer capable of seeing Chloe in such hysterics, especially because of me.

I wanted happy moments to be with me as I passed on.

Smiling upon me in my dreams was not a raven-haired girl, nor any ill-tempered brunettes. It was one (now dirty) blonde I called my best friend, my other half. My humanity.

I reached out and grabbed the calming girl's hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "I need you to be strong Chlo." I tried to think of something to get her mind off the situation.

"Tell me something you've never told anyone." Bewildered momentarily, she managed to understand my meaning. After being silent for a while I assumed she had decided against answering.

"I'm not who you think I am." She prompted in a quite voice I don't remember ever hearing before.

'_How so?'_ I thought, but couldn't voice.

"I put on this happy face for everyone that's so…artificial. Trying to be there for everybody kind of gets contradictory after a while, especially for someone who's adopting passivity policy after never really understanding the term her whole life." She almost smiled, but the lines restrained her and the sadness prevailed.

"You should get over Lana. Yeah you love her, but your future, whether you choose to believe it or not, will never accommodate her. She's as bad for you and as you are for her." The obstruction I sensed there before had gotten far worse, there seemed little chance I'd be able to talk unless I absolutely needed to. I knew that I might.

I tried my best to shoot her a look, raising my brow in surprise. _'You never said anything before?'_

"I'm your best friend Clark, not your personal love life expert. Plus there's this sort of gray area for me when it comes to what is sound and what is my own biased insights."

She turned her head away from me, sighing. "Only you would spend what might be your last moment's talking about secrets." Her tone remained emotionless.

If I had the power to shrug I would've.

19 minutes, neither of us had spoken in a while. I felt the foreign obstruction, lessen.

"When I was 14—"

"Shh…save your strength." Chloe brushed the hair away from my face, trying to calm me.

"—a pretty blonde girl gave me my first kiss. I never told anyone how much I liked the kiss or the girl at the time."

She sat back on her heels for a moment, taken aback. "You did?" A small smile escaped her. I could barely keep my eyes open, but I saw it before I shut them.

"I've never fully recovered from the Spring Formal."

"I'm the real reason Pete moved away." Instead of waiting for the shock to settle I continued.

"My biggest fear is that you'll die protecting my secret."

"Mine is that I won't." The mood was becoming too serious again, and I reverted as best I could.

"I actually love peas." That was rewarded with a short laugh.

"Do not."

"Maybe, but after, '_I'm a super-powered alien_', there really isn't a whole lot to tell."

"When I was 5 I wanted to be a hot air balloon pilot and travel the world."

"When I was 4 I had a nasty habit of running around my house naked, with a table cloth around my neck as a cape. I aspired to be a magician."

"A thoroughly entertaining nude one at that." The humor in her voice disappeared again. "Now no more talking, the sun's almost up."

14 minutes. Things were improving.

I was still losing blood something fierce, and I was barely conscious enough to keep conversation, but the hysterics were over and if I did die... _God, I don't want to die._ It was a happy death.

Bleeding to death on an abandoned pathway. Bundles of joy, really.

11 minutes. I could feel myself slipping and she could see it just as well, but she didn't revert to sobbing. Chloe stood above me, pacing frantically. "I can't. I can't. How can it be completely out of my hands? I can't just wait around."

More pacing. "Is there anything Clark? The caves maybe? Jor-el?"

I groaned incoherently. She stopped suddenly to lean over me. I tried to speak again.

"Your. Turn."

"Clark! Don't you understand?" 9 minutes, she pounded her fist on the asphalt. "This is serious. You're going to die!"

I began to remember how we had to move quickly out of Lex's mansion, feigning a trip to the emergency room, merely trying to get away quick enough to leave no trace of blood. Lex had not realized the error of his judgement. He believed himself to have proven my morality once again. Had it been any other weapon than this particular blade it would have shattered into a dozen pieces and my secret would have been revealed.

The hospital would have caused more problems for us once they noticed that they wouldn't be able to puncture or prod me anywhere else. The knife cut deep and prevented my healing in a weakened state. Only with the sun and full recharging capacity could I be revived.

We were on the roof of the Talon; the highest elevator equipped building in the area we had any remote access to. Chloe dragged me here and had been keeping pressure on the wound even as she drove. Still it gushed because the skin couldn't be closed and stood defiantly apart.

6 minutes. The beep of my watch tells me. I glimpse her by the edge, peering over the city. "If you die, I don't know what I'll do, Clark. Just imagine explaining this." She paused to blow her nose. "How will it make sense to anyone? People will say I was trying to kill you. Why else would I not take you to the hospital? And Lex. Well at least he'll finally go to jail. But you. I can't even begin—This world needs you. You have so much left to do. Who will be there for us then?" I heard her footsteps near.

"Turn." I croaked again, hoping on a 50-50 chance that she'd heard me and on a 40-60 that she'd understood.

I could hear the eye roll in her sigh. "I didn't kiss you because the world was ending. I kissed you because I wanted to. I've always wanted to."

"So have I."

Within seconds, her arms were around me and her lips were desperate on mine. She gasped and pulled away. "God, you're cold." Her lips grazed my forehead. "You're dying. I—I—can't believe…"

3 minutes. I could not feel much of anything, and speech felt like a foreign concept too difficult to undertake. She was right. I was dying. I had barely any sense of well…sense. All I knew was that Chloe was holding me and I was not alone.

In my mind's eye I imagined telling her things in our future; A few proposals even, when the time was right. I'd kept quiet without knowing of her feelings. It had been so long since we spoke of "us" in any romantic notion. It was a silly dream to holdout for, especially when she was so deeply involved with someone else. A respectable someone else.

Chloe can't begin to think of what it'd be like without me. I can. She'll become the journalist she's destined to be. Her name will be known far and wide. She'll remember me because I can't bear to think she won't, but she'll marry Jimmy and have a family to come home to. She can be happy without me.

I look into death and smile. 2 minutes.

She shakes my lifeless form. "You can't die damn it! Wake up! Wake up, Clark!" Chloe can live.

There is nothing to fear or regret. I smile.

60 seconds. I don't see a light, but I'm not alive either.

"You can't be dead. I love you, Clark! I love you, do you hear me? I love you! There's no living for me without you."

The words. Three of them. But I don't have the strength to turn back now. I don't have the strength to open my mouth and say them back. She'll never know.

There was a soft tickle at my nose, a sweeping sensation filled me and without hesitation, my eyes flickered open. I was bathed in golden light as was the girl to my right who upon my observation appeared soaked in my blood. I felt her cold hands run over my stomach as it poked at me and tested to be sure.

"It's gone. There's no wound." Chloe's disbelief turned into sudden carefree relief. I would be okay and already I could feel the strength return to me.

I looked at her, into her beautiful blue-green eyes now brimming with tears. "I lied."

Her head cocked curiously to one side in interest. "About?"

"My biggest fear." I pushed myself into a sitting position, ignoring all the concerned admonishing looks she threw at me.

I ran a hand through her darkening hair. "My fear that I'd die and never get to tell you I loved you."

I kissed her forehead, mirroring the way she had done it moments before.

She smiled the broadest and brightest I've ever seen. "Good thing you stuck around, cause I'm expecting to hear it everyday until then."

**Finis**


End file.
